The first season sure was full of memorable episodes. While I didn't remember a whole lot of the dialogue (I have no idea how the PokéDex' puns flew over my head as a kid, same with the “Cowterpie” joke), I could remember important scenes, such as the Weedle battle, the battle between Samurai, the Beedrill swarm, and Metapod's evolution. They were just as I remembered it, and yet it meant a bit more than I thought.
For an anime that's made with children in mind, one can forget that Pokémon can get brutal at times. I remember getting freaked out over Pinsir as a child because of the imagine spot of Metapod breaking in two. Not to mention that the Beedrill swarm can get rather nightmarish, as the chases are something that do happen in real-life bee swarms—at least here in America, the Africanized bees do this (though it's thankfully mellowed out a bit over the years). The chase sequences were the biggest action scenes in the episode, but also the most adrenaline-rushed. Ash nearly getting stung himself would probably be the second-most.
There's a brief moment where Pikachu takes a nap instead of fighting a Weedle. Is it possible that he is high-leveled at this point? If I remember correctly, this wouldn't be the last time he did such a thing, even though he's no Charizard (though at least with Charizard, he had his reasonings).
“Ye shrieking maiden.” Well, Samurai sure dropped that kind of talk about halfway xD. I have completely forgotten just how nasally/lispy Samurai was. Thus far the voices have been fine (even Team Rocket's voices), but Samurai's is rather jarring in comparison. He may be character-of-the-day, and one who's a bit bland compared to others, but that doesn't mean he should've gotten a bad voice direction.
Of course, the scene everyone remembers is the Metapod vs. Metapod. You would think Ash's would know Tackle, or at least String Shot, but it made for some really... odd innuendos and wise-cracks from Misty.
Team Rocket got a little silly in this episode, but we got to see them interact with each other, and that's always a plus. James' whining coupled with Jessie's own snappy demeanor makes for great chemistry, and Meowth is the cherry on top with his arrogant behavior. He still has his “I'm top cat” behavior that he will lose in future episodes when his pride breaks, but we'll come to that when we do. For now, the little moments we had with the trio weren't exactly slapstick, yet they garnered the most laughs (if Metapod vs. Metapod didn't).
Evolutions I swear was handled with more logic or more care in these early episodes than they have become in later ones. The Kakuna and Metapod evolutions are amongst some of the best on this show, at least thus far—which doesn't make sense for me to say as they're the only ones we've seen right now. And yet they're spectacular to look at. Metapod's in general is one of those evolutions that has a strong impact due to the care Ash had for it. His character development was par with the first episode in that he admits to his foolish mistakes, an important step as a trainer to gain the love and trust of his Pokémon. Metapod's evolution has to be one of the more unique ones as it just gets a hole ripped into it, and it was all ready to evolve and emerge. Not that the Kakuna didn't do the same thing, but they didn't have outside help. While it's not exactly a trauma, I thought Metapod was going to die from getting a hole ripped into it, and that is why Butterfree's evolution is so memorable to me. The two episodes between Caterpie and Butterfree is also a nice touch to show how fast it takes for Bug Pokémon to grow, a little bit of detail that adds uniqueness to this world.
(Speaking of attention to detail, the tidbit of the Beedrill sleeping with needles under their heads was funny, even though they dropped from the sky, so perhaps they curled up like that when they landed.)
The episode's pacing was a bit “meh” given the time constraint (I feel like we could've seen Viridian Forest more), but the conflict was fitting enough and character/plot-driven to prevent it from being completely filler. So with a promise that is in (harsh) hindsight broken—Samurai may never return on-screen ever again—Ash heads to Pewter City and to one of my personal favorite episodes of my childhood.
